Coffin Makers To Vacate Korle-Bu Lands

The Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and the Korle-Bu Mortuary Coffin Makers Association have mutually agreed that coffin makers occupying lands belonging to the hospital would leave the place by Friday, July 9, 2004.

The agreement was the outcome of a meeting between the leadership of the two bodies and the Greater Accra regional police command, following the dismissal o a suit brought against the hospital by the Coffin Makers Association, seeking to delay their ejection until they had found an alternative place to under take their trade. Consequently, the coffin makers agreed to voluntary leave the place by July 9, 2004, ailing which they would forcibly be ejected. Assistant commissioner of the police in charge of Accra regional police, Mr. Kofi Boakye, confirmed in an interview that although the police could have gone ahead to forcibly eject the coffin makers based on the court order, it decided to use peaceful means to get them out of the place.

An Accra High Court presided over by Mr. Justice P. Baffoe-Bonnie, on June 18, this year, dismissed the suit as frivolous and without merit and accordingly awarded a cost of ?1,000,000 against the coffin makers.

The court held that the coffin makers did not dispute the right of the board to eject them, but rather claimed that the chief administrator of the hospital, who gave them notice to quit, did not have the mandate of the board.